City’zens’ in Stupor When It Comes to Voting

 Hyderabad: Whatever voters in Hyderabad and its surrounding constituencies may be accused of, the one thing they cannot be charged with is being lazy, lackadaisical, or that they just don’t care about who wins in an election, or which party comes to power. And this has been true in every Lok Sabha election since 1996.

It did not matter whether Hyderabad and Secunderabad were in unified Andhra Pradesh, as did the Malkajgiri and Chevella constituencies that came into existence in 2009, voters in these four constituencies appear to have developed a ‘we don’t care about elections’ attitude. Things did not change even after Telangana became a state in 2014.

For instance, Hyderabad constituency, in the heart of the state and the state capital — whether during the days of unified Andhra Pradesh or subsequently in the newly carved out Telangana, had touched a high of 73.16 per cent voting in the 1998 elections, marking a huge leap from the 53.57 per cent turnout in the previous 1996 elections. And from the next general election in 1999, voters in Hyderabad put the constituency on a slippery slope and never crossed the 60 per cent mark.

A real blow to efforts of the ECI to get people out to vote, as well as the parties in the fray was felt in the 2019 elections when a mere 44.84 per cent of voters turned up at polling stations in Hyderabad to cast their votes.

While Secunderabad and Malkajgiri never touched or crossed the 60 per cent turnout mark, only Chevella did so twice, in the first elections in 2009 after it was created, and then again in 2014. And in the 2019 elections, the predominantly rural voters of Chevella appeared to have picked up a tip or two on how not to care about voting which saw the polling percentage dip to 53.25 per cent in that year’s elections.

It did not matter that in all elections since 1996, except for one in 2009 when total elector numbers were down than in the previous elections, but which went up every subsequent election adding more and more voters to the lists on paper, nearly half of these voters never made it to the polling stations.

How city zens voted over the years in Lok Sabha elections

Constituency – Voter turnout% – Votes polled - Total electors

1996

Hyderabad – 53.57 – 949560 - 14,98,515

Secunderabad – 51.86 – 877169 - 16,91,418

1998

Hyderabad – 73.16 – 1102649 - 15,07,135

Secunderabad – 53.53 – 9,06,699 - 16,93,970

1999

Hyderabad – 59.15 – 10,83,678 - 15,67,225

Secunderabad – 54.85 – 9,70,791 -17,70,024

2004

Hyderabad – 55.73 – 9,86,801 - 1770725

Secunderabad – 52.59 – 973317 - 18,50,694

2009

Hyderabad – 52.59 – 731348 - 13,93,242

Secunderabad – 54.93 – 865038 - 15,74,818

Malkajgiri – 51.46 – 1205714 - 23,43,050

Chevella – 64.52 – 1085000 - 16,81,664

2014

Hyderabad – 53.30 – 9,71,770 – 18,23,217

Secunderabad – 53.06 – 10,04,763 – 18,93,741

Malkajgiri – 51.05 – 1624859 – 31,83,083

Chevella – 60.51 – 13,22,312 – 21,85,164

2019

Hyderabad – 44.84 – 8,77,941 - 19,57,931

Secunderabad – 46.50 – 9,15,263 - 19,68,276

Malkajgiri – 49.63 – 15,63,646 - 31,50,313

Chevella – 53.25 – 13,00,998 - 24,43,112

* Malkajgiri and Chevella Lok Sabha constituencies were formed in 2009